Watching Yale on Channel 8 news
- Thread starter gars44
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FfldCntyFan
Texas: Property of UConn Men's Basketball program
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You are making it sound like they were winning national titles recently. The last time they won one Joe Paterno most likely wasn't born yet. The last time they where in the discussion for a title, Babe Ruth was still a Yankee.
I remember a game in the early 1970's against Colgate where at most there were 12k people in the stands (I was one of them). That program talks like they were a major player throughout the last century but the truth is while they had a stray season here and there where they were ranked (1968, 1972 or 1973, I don't remember which and ~ 1977), their team wasn't capable of surviving a game against another ranked opponent, much less a season against some real competition. At no point since WWII did they have more than a player or two who could start on a decent (legitimate major) team and 80% of their roster wouldn't make the cut at a real football school. It was during the depression that they stopped playing teams from outside of the northeast because they found out that many of those schools took football a bit more seriously than they did (which led to Yale leading a campaign knocking the football factories of the midwest and south).
I remember a game in the early 1970's against Colgate where at most there were 12k people in the stands (I was one of them). That program talks like they were a major player throughout the last century but the truth is while they had a stray season here and there where they were ranked (1968, 1972 or 1973, I don't remember which and ~ 1977), their team wasn't capable of surviving a game against another ranked opponent, much less a season against some real competition. At no point since WWII did they have more than a player or two who could start on a decent (legitimate major) team and 80% of their roster wouldn't make the cut at a real football school. It was during the depression that they stopped playing teams from outside of the northeast because they found out that many of those schools took football a bit more seriously than they did (which led to Yale leading a campaign knocking the football factories of the midwest and south).
Not exactly true FF. I was at the Yale bowl in 1981 or 82 when Yale beat a navy team that may have been ranked and there were probably 40 to 50K there. Hamden's Rich Diana was the star RB. Yale may have been ranked that season. Back then in early 80s they'd get 30K a game easy on a regular basis.
Oh and John Spagnola was the TE on that team and played in the NFL for a number of years mostly with the eagles. Diana played very briefly for Miami and the QB on that team may also have been drafted and a LB on that team also played (rohrer) for the bears.
FfldCntyFan
Texas: Property of UConn Men's Basketball program
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I've seen a number of Ivy League opponents over the years and those games always had good crowds (non Harvard could be 40k - 50k and the last game saw at the Bowl, about 25 years ago against Columbia when they were in the middle of their record losing streak and there were still about 32k-35k in the stands. I'm surprised the crowd for Navy wasn't larger.
My main point was that Yale (although they claimed differently) hasn't been a prominent player in college football since before the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Also, there were some stray games (such as the Colgate game I pointed out from nearly 40 years ago) where the attendance was very low (likely what UConn drew at Memorial suring the same time), appearing pathetic in a venue the size of the Yale Bowl.
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